The Vintagers, after a miniature of the "Dialogues de Saint Gregoire" (thirteenth century)—manuscript of the Royal Library of Brussels.

Vintage, in wine-making, is the process of picking grapes and creating the finished product. Wine is an Alcoholic beverage made from the fermentation of Grape juice For the Tokyo University supercomputer see Gravity Pipe. GRAPE, or GRA phics P rogramming E nvironment is A vintage wine is one made from grapes that were all, or primarily, grown and harvested in a single specified year. In certain wines it can denote quality, as in Port wine, where Port houses make and declare "vintage" Port in their best years. Port wine (also known as Vinho do Porto, Oporto, Porto, and often simply Port) is a Portuguese, Fortified From this tradition, a common, though incorrect, usage applies the term to any wine that is perceived to be particularly old or of a particularly high quality.

Most countries allow a vintage wine to include a portion of wine that is not from the year denoted on the label. In Chile and South Africa, the requirement is 75 percent same-year content for vintage-dated wine. ^[1][2] In Australia, New Zealand, and the member states of the European Union the requirement is 85 percent. ^[3][4][5] In the United States the requirement is 85%, unless the wine is designated with an AVA, (e. An American Viticultural Area is a designated Wine Grape -growing region in the United States distinguishable by geographic features with boundaries g. , Russian River Valley), in which case it is 95%. Technically, the 85% rule in the United States applies equally to foreign imports, but there are obvious challenges in enforcing the regulation. ^[6]

The opposite of a vintage wine is a nonvintage wine, which is usually a blend from the produce of two or more years. This is a common practice for winemakers seeking a consistent style of wine, year on year.

The effect of vintage disputed

Vintage near Sorrento, Italy, Jacob Philipp Hackert, c. Sorrento is a small city in Campania, Italy, with some 16500 inhabitants Jacob Philipp Hackert ( September 15, 1737 in Prenzlau &ndash April 28, 1807 in San Piero di Careggio near Florence 1784.

The importance of vintage, however, is both varied and disputed.

In wine produced on the colder limits of wine production, vintage is often very important because some seasons will be much warmer and produce riper grapes and better wine for people to drink. On the other hand, a poor growing season can lead to grapes low in sugar, which lowers the quality of the resulting wine.

In many wine regions, especially in the New World, growing seasons are much more uniform. The New World is one of the names used for the non-Eurasian/non-African parts of the Earth specifically the Americas and Australia. In dry regions, the systematic and controlled use of irrigation also contributes to uniform vintages. Irrigation is an artificial application of water to the soil usually for assisting in growing crops However, such wines are regularly labeled by vintage because of consumer demand.

Wines of superior vintages from prestigious producers and regions will often command much higher prices than those from average vintages. This is especially the case if wines are likely to improve further with some age in the bottle. Some wines are only labeled with a vintage in better-than-average years, to maintain their quality and reputation, while the vast majority of wines are produced to be drunk young and fresh. In such cases, a vintage is usually considered less important. However, it can serve to protect consumers against buying a wine that wouldn't be expected to improve with age and could be past its best, such as with Beaujolais nouveau, a wine style made to be consumed within months of its bottling. Beaujolais nouveau is a red Wine made from Gamay grapes produced in the Beaujolais region of France.

The importance of vintage may sometimes be exaggerated. For example, New York Times wine columnist Frank J. Prial declared the vintage chart to be dead, writing that “winemakers of the world have rendered the vintage chart obsolete” (Prial) and Bill Marsano wrote that “winemakers now have the technology and skills to make good and even very good wines in undistinguished years” (Marsano). Frank J Prial, who graduated from Georgetown University in 1951 was the Wine Columnist for the The New York Times for 25 years The Wine Spectator's James Laube has asserted that "even an average vintage can yield some grand wines" (Laube). Wine Spectator is a Magazine that focuses on Wine. Founded as a newsprint tabloid by Bob Morrisey in 1976 it was purchased three years later by publisher

Roman Weil, co-chairman of the Oenonomy Society of the US and Professor at the University of Chicago, where you can read his bio, tested the controversial hypotheses that experienced wine drinkers "cannot distinguish in blind tastings the wine of years rated high from those of years rated low, or, if they can, they do not agree with the vintage chart’s preferences” (Weil). Wine tasting (often in wine circles simply tasting) is the sensory examination and evaluation of Wine.

Dr. Weil used wines ranging from four to 17 years beyond their vintage with 240 wine drinkers and found that the tasters couldn’t distinguish between wines of good and bad vintages, except for Bordeaux wines. A Bordeaux wine is any Wine produced in the Bordeaux region of France. And even when they could make a distinction, the match between the tasters' individual assessments and the charts' rankings were little better than tossing a coin. Coin flipping or coin tossing is the practice of throwing a Coin in the air to resolve a Dispute between two parties or otherwise choose between two alternatives When the tests were replicated with wine experts including French wine academics, the results were again the same as chance. French wine is produced in several regions throughout France, on over 800000 Hectares (over 2 million Acres of Vineyards and in a typical

Many critics believe that Bordeaux has the world’s largest variance in vintages. Indeed, Weil found that "tasters can distinguish the Excellent from the Appalling one, even if they didn’t agree with which is the Appalling one. "

Weil doesn’t consider a vintage chart to be useless. He suggests using one to help "find good buys in wine. Buy wine from the Appalling years," which may be priced far below actual quality.

The subject of the importance of vintage is one about which disagreement can be expected to continue.

Vintages in Burgundy

Vintages in the Côte de Beaune in Burgundy

Miscellaneous

• In Spain, wine regulators publish official classifications of each vintage. Burgundy (Bourgogne Burgund is a region historically situated in modern-day France and Switzerland, inhabited in turn by Celts ( Gauls) The Côte de Beaune area is the southern part of the Côte d'Or, the limestone ridge that is home to the great names of Burgundy wine. Spanish wines are wines produced in the southwestern European country of Spain.
• A common Bordelais saying is "The best vintage is the vintage we have to sell" (Greene). The Bordelais is a pays of Aquitaine in France, the region surrounding the city of Bordeaux.
• Vintage can also mean of or pertaining to the vine.
• Vintage has also become a word used to describe an action typical of a particular person, for example "thats vintage toothill"
• Vintage, is also an American Alternative Rock band from Grand Rapids, MI.

References

• Greene, Joshua. Bordeaux 2005. Wine & Spirits, June 2006, 25(3), 24-26.
• Laube, James. A caveat for Cabernet. Wine Spectator, June 15, 2006, 31(4), 37.
• Prial, Frank J. Wine talk: So who needs vintage charts. 'New York Times, February 9, 2000, B1 & B14.
• Marsano, Bill. Vintage nonsense. Hemisphere (United Airline's magazine), May, 2001.
• Weil, Roman L. Parker v. Prial: The death of the vintage chart. Oenometrie VIII. Eighth annual meeting of the Vineyard Data Quantification Society (VDQS) in Saint Helena, California; published in VDSQ, May, also in Chance Magazine, vol 14, no. 4, Fall 2001. 2001. [1]

External links and other references

• A primer of wine vintages and vintage charts
• Official Rioja vintage ratings
• The Decanter's Vintage Guides